Articles

And Then There Were Two: Fnatic and Invitus Gaming Are Your Worlds 2018 Grand Finalists

POSTED BY Martin Patino ON October 31, 2018

24 teams from all over the world came to compete at this year’s League of Legends World Championship and after several weeks of intense and oftentimes surprising matches only two teams remain to battle it out for the title of 2018 World Champion. Fnatic from Europe and Invictus Gaming from China, two teams from the same group, will meet once again in the grand finals to see which one will go home with the title and the lion’s share of the at least USD 2.25 Million prize pool.

After topping their respective group, with Fnatic claiming the first seed and IG claiming the second after a tiebreaker between the two teams, the two would-be finals teams found themselves on opposite sides of the bracket. The two teams would face off against Edward Gaming and KT Rolster, the top seeds from Group C, respectively, which saw the first major upsets of the tournament, with IG taking down tournament favorite South Korea’s KT Rolster and Fnatic defeating China’s Edward Gaming.

The two teams would then move on to sweep their respective semi-finals opponents, with Fnatic eliminating North American hopeful Cloud9 and IG beating Europe’s G2 Esports.

This year’s Worlds is especially unique as it marks a big change in the ongoing trend of eastern dominance. First off, three of the four semi-final teams were from the west, and with Fnatic’s advancement to the finals, also marks the first time a western team has reached the finals since the first Worlds back in 2011. It will also be the first time in over a decade that neither of the two teams at the finals are from South Korea.

At the finals, Fnatic is looking to be favored to win as they’ve performed slightly better than their opponents but with the way things have been going at this year’s Worlds, it’s really anyone’s game.

The World finals will be held on November 3, 2018, with the countdown starting at 2:30 PM (GMT +8). Much like the quarter-finals and semifinals, the two finals teams will see a best-of-five match between the two teams.